To Hell and Back
by the-speed-reader
Summary: She's twenty-four the second time she falls in love, and this time it lasts. / Clintasha, one-shot.


_Hey guys! So here's an soulmate words AU / hopefully predicted scene during Age of Ultron. It's basically half-fluff, half-comfort, but what the hell? I've been switching between writing this and a Huntingbird fic, so hopefully I'll get that piece finished and posted soon. It's just a little Clintasha scene, but I really needed to write this. I'm slowly getting back in the writing game, and really, really, **really, **hope that I'll never get writers block again._

_I know that's a bit unrealistic, but hey, a girl can dream._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

"_Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in._" -Shannon L. Alder

* * *

She's sixteen years old the first time she falls in love – or, rather, she _thinks _that it's love. He's her instructor, pure muscle with dark eyes and dark hair and a metal arm to match; they don't wear each others words but she doesn't care, because why? It's not like she was ever going to find the person whose words were sprawled carelessly across the scarred pane of her stomach.

But the affair is too dirty and ends too quick and she's left screaming as they pull her into the machine, putting her down once again like a dog. He does nothing but curl his fingers away from hers, that face as passive as ever.

(Years later, when he puts a bullet through her to get to another target, she almost prays that he'll recognize her.

He doesn't.)

She's twenty-four the second time she falls in love, and this time it lasts; there've been plenty of men between her sheets and her thighs, but they have never lasted very long. They've all been disposable – beings of pleasure for her to use at her disposable, to manipulate until they no longer serve a purpose.

She still remembers that painful process of trying to remove the pure black words staining her skin. She remembers how often the Red Room had tried to have those words seared away from her skin, and how the next morning she had woken up with those words still there. Still haunting her with a future that she knew that she could never have.

Except, somehow, she does.

They first meeting starts rather violently; he's got an arrow pointing at her chest, seemingly mute until she snarls, "Kill me already, ублюдок."

She can still picture it clearly in her mind; the way his jaw snapped, his teeth grinding together in a motion that was apparent through his cheek muscles.

He'd torn his mask off, blue eyes glaring into hers as he snapped, his bow dipping an inch in a half-shock, "I don't think I'm gonna do that, дорогая."

She remembers what happened after all too clearly; the moment of pure shock running through both of them. Her hair was curled around her face, a result from the fight of a previous moment ago; his was a mess of blond and brown swept over his face. They'd both been running on pure adrenaline, but in that moment, all she had felt was tiredness.

He had given her a reason to live, and for that, she will always be thankful. But he had brought her to S.H.I.E.L.D., an organization that was simply HYDRA working in the background. Even with Tony Stark half-assing a plan to save them all from this new threat, the scars of HYDRA would forever remain sewed in the world's existence. It's hard to think nowadays. And after the Scarlet Witch had nearly taken her control away from her – it was hard to sleep now.

Now – now, she doesn't know what she's doing.

She flicks the faucet on with her pinkie, keeping as much blood as possible away from the stainless metal as she brushes her palms together. The blood runs down her fingertips, swirling in the metal bowl and slipping down into the drain with a quiet slurp. She's trembling, just barely, but there's no hiding from the aftermath of a battle. Sometimes, there just was no escaping – not from Ultron, not from HYDRA, not from anyone.

There's the slight scrape of a knock at her door then, and her heard jerks up in response, droplets of red/pink slashing against the mirror. She stares at her appearance for a moment, the way her curls frame her face, the way her eyes cut into the mirror as if it was glass.

She hardly knows her own appearance anymore, worn and just – just plain tired. She's tired of all of the secrets and all of the lies.

"C'mon, Tash," she hears the low grumble of his voice call out. "I'm the deaf one, not you."

She fights the laugh that starts to gurgle up in her throat, instead stepping back as her still-wet hand grasps for the door. The door creeks open with a heavy familiarity; since the beginning of their, um, _relationship_, she'd spent far more time in Clint's worn down apartment. Her things were littered all over: the throw pillows that she had swiped from a garage sale, her red-and-white shampoo bottles – even the set of knives in the fourth drawer down were hers. For battle, of course. As if she would cook; that was his job. She's more likely to burn the house down that make mac-and-cheese.

She smells him before she really sees him; the rough cut of dirt caked along the side of his face is a rather immediate indicator, as is the low undertone of sweat. She leans back, her feet tapping his barefooted ones as he steps in, shutting the door quickly behind him The bathroom isn't much larger that the one that their S.H.I.E.L.D. barrack held, but it still fit both of them comfortably.

She leans against the counter, her fingers gripping the cool marble. She sees how his eyes flicker to the still stained red on her fingertips, but she doesn't move; doesn't do anything really, other than see how he will react.

He crosses his arms over his chest, blowing a breath of air from his lips. "So," he starts, voice sending a jolt down her spine, "anything you want to talk about?"

"No," she hums back lazily, brushing her foot against his calf. She carefully pulls him closer, wrapping her leg around his until he's stepping willingly forward, his hands latching onto her hips, digging his fingers in there. She finds his grip tighten even tighter against her skin as he lifts her onto the counter, her back bumping against the mirror.

Her hands play their own part in this little interchange however, one moving to dig itself into his hair (she'll never figure out how he gets it so soft) and the other moving to curl over his shoulder, pulling his collar aside to peek at the words written there.

She's known them by heart, having pressed her mouth across them a thousand times, but it still sends a lurch through her middle just like it had the first time: _Kill me already, __ублюдок__._

He tilts his head at her, bowing it downward, his palm moving sideways from her hip to brush against her stomach; his hand burns as it moves, his fingers tracing the words on her middle: _I don't think I'm gonna do that, дорогая._

She remembers, when she was little, how she couldn't read what the first part had translated as. She knew what the last part had read: _sweetheart. _The second term had been endearing, something she remembers made her parents think that her soulmate was going to be a sly gentlemen. Back then, she hadn't been able to read English and it was only later, during the time of the Red Room, that she discovered what the first part read as.

He dips his head down, pressing his lips gently against hers before pulling away and meeting her gaze. "So, about that talking…" he says, voice trailing off as her hand dips downward, her mind focusing on taking his attention off the subject.

But he catches it, fingers curling around her wrist as he narrows his eyes at her. "Nope," he responds, quirking a smile at her; but with all of the half-joking, there's a note of seriousness lurking behind his features.

She huffs, rolling her eyes and ignoring the bile-like feeling replacing the one of pleasure in her stomach. "I'm fine," she assures him, but then he pins her with that glare of his – the one that had always called her bull ever since they'd first met. She'd never been able to hide anything from him.

She draws her hand away from his middle, moving frame his cheek with her palm. "It's just –," she starts, but then the comforting hand on her hip squeezes gently, encouraging her to continue. "After Loki – I tried hard, Clint, I really did. It's just – my life hasn't been God and monsters and magic. My life has been _science. _I'm a _science experiment, _Barton, and that's all I was bred for."

He meets her gaze, eyes darkening as his mouth parts to destroy her claim, but she raises her hand in a clear symbol. "Let me finish." She brushes her thumb along the corner of his lips, her eyes darting down to the start of the black words littered across his collarbone. "And I fought back. I broke free of that, and you helped me. But today – the Scarlet Witch. Wanda Maximoff. She tried her damn hardest to sink me back into that world, to take away my control. She tried and she tried and she tried –"

She can feel a lump threatening to form in her throat, but she forces herself to continue on. "It's hard. It's hard dealing with that – like you did with Loki."

She feels him stiffen under her palm at the mention of the god, his eyes slamming shut. She can almost see as his memories of the god flash on the silver-screen beneath his eyelids, the way the vengeful monster had tried to take away all he had – had tried to take away _her_.

"I know," he urges, hand flattening against her stomach. "And I'm sorry, Nat. I'm _sorry_. But we are – _were_, agents; we're not always going to be trained for everything we face."

She tilts her head back for a moment, forcing a deep breath into her lungs. "I know. But hey," she cracks, "at least we're alive?" That last part of the sentence is forced, twisted into an almost question. She knows they're alive; she knows that, she honestly does, but sometimes it's hard to come to terms with that version of reality after living through so many others in previous years.

He dips his head down again, this time pressing his lips more firmly against hers. She responds back with equal vigor, a half-gasp escaping from her as his tongue slips between her lips, running itself along her bottom lip.

"We're gonna be alright," he tells her when he pulls back, his pupils darkened. "We're gonna be alright. We're gonna defeat Ultron, and wipe the last of HYDRA from this damn earth."

She swears he almost looks sad, but it's gone within an instant if it ever was there in the first place. "I know," she murmurs, a jolt of adrenaline running through her, left over from the battle.

She doesn't know if that's true, but she knows this: no one can take Clint away from her.

Not even Ultron himself.

* * *

_I will see you guys again soon._

_(I hope.)_


End file.
